Quote:
Originally Posted by David Franklin  Can't find the link now, but I'm sure I've seen 1 2 & 3 4 5 & 6 (or possibly 1 2 & 3 4 & 5 6) as an alternative timing for straight eighths music. And of course if the count starts on beat 3, then you'd have 3 4 & 1 2 ... so the "triple" falls in the same place as Cha Cha. |
My gut response to that is 'Ick' which is not entirely fair, but I can't bear to try and align WCS and Cha-cha musically, they are just so completely different.
If we're talking in terms of WCS, the first level of accepted syncopation (ie anything other than 1 2 3&4 5&6) is 1 2&3&4 5 6 (as taught at Southport in June by Deborah), and the '&'s are accented physically because they're different. I'm sure there are others, and the one you suggest works too.
However, it is different from the way a Cha-Cha triple step fits across a bar for the simple reason that the cha-cha-cha on 4&1 is supposed to be there, it's specified by the music and the dance doesn't work without it, unlike the WCS 'alternative timing' which is a syncopation and as such feels completely different from the set rhythm that fits into the dance.
(for an example of why just the fact that it is syncopation with attitude rather than just meant to be there, compare Bach with jazz)
All the other stuff, while I'm not sure how correct it is musically (the system you use is the American note-naming system of quarter and eighth notes) is probably quite a useful way of explaining it. The problem occurs with triplets when you have to battle with the concept of the fact that all of a sudden you have 12 eighth-notes in one bar.
Of course, the actual answer to this paradox is that they are no longer eighth notes, because they have been shortened - rather think of them as parts of beats, and while 'straight' music has 2 parts per beats, swung music has 3, where you step on the first and sometimes third only.